SCAG – the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General – is allowing bikies to hijack its work program, CLA believes. SCAG is debating semi-fascist bike club laws from SA and NSW instead of dealing with a priority item on its work program, the massive over-representation of Indigenous Australians in courts and jails (25% of prisoners, less than 3% of the Australian population).
CLA media release Thursday 16 April 2009
SCAG’s program hijacked by bikies
The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) should concentrate more on on its own work program and less on knee-jerk reaction to one-off events, Civil Liberties Australia said today.
“SCAG is wasting its time debating whether to make semi-fascist bike laws in SA and NSW national, when it should be concentrating on getting Indigenous people out of our courts and jails,” CLA CEO Bill Rowlings said.
The issue of the massive over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal system has been on SCAG’s work program for a year, whereas bikie laws didn’t even get a mention until the failure of police intelligence and CCTV systems at Sydney Airport a few weeks ago.
“If SCAG goes into instant-reaction mode because an issue hits the media, it’s becoming a state, political grouping rather than a national, consultative body.”
He said that ‘Developing a national Indigenous Justice Framework’ was one of SCAG’s top five priorities, but the issue has received short shrift because conference time in Canberra has been wasted discussing bike club membership laws.
“Just because SA and NSW are incapable of using their existing crime laws to catch and convict criminals in bike clubs is no reason that important national agenda items at SCAG meetings should be hijacked,” Mr Rowlings said.
“Incompetence in the police and attorney-general areas in SA and NSW shouldn’t hold the rest of the country to ransom.
“Aboriginal Australians – 2 or 3 per cent of the population – are massively over-represented in Australian jails, comprising about 25 per cent of the prisoners. Or, putting it differently, the non-Aboriginal imprisonment rate is about 120 per 100,000, whereas the Aboriginal imprisonment rate is about 1500 per 100,000 Aborigines.”
CLA wants action to cut the Indigenous prisoner rate.
“We’ve asked the WA Attorney-General to reduce that State’s rate from an horrendous 42.3% of the 4000-odd prisoners to less than 40% by Australia Day 2010. That’s a firm target that he could take on publicly, and meet.
“Other States should set similar targets. Reducing the number and percentage of Indigenous people in Australian jails is what SCAG should be working on, not bikie laws.
“Those laws are certain to be thrown out by the High Court on appeal – they’re totally contrary to Australia’s international human rights obligations. Of course, there’s no way they could even be introduced into respectable jurisdictions which have human rights laws, like Victoria and the ACT.”
Ends
Civil Liberties Australia Inc. A04043 Box 7438 Fisher ACT 2611 Australia Web: www.cla.asn.au E: secretary@cla.asn.au